Is worldbuilding about consensus or critical mass?
Q&A with Zen teacher and movement strategist, Norma Wong.
Q. In order to build the world we want, do we also need buy-in from those who aren’t keen on changing the existing world, or who are resistant to change, or who don’t believe another world is necessary? In other words, can worldbuilding happen without everyone’s buy-in? Is it about consensus or critical mass?
A. Worldbuilding is definitely about critical mass. Critical mass, by definition, has self-replicating energy. Consensus is a process that can create mass trending toward critical mass. But it is a process, not mass itself.
A world dependent on everyone’s buy-in is the definition of status quo, with a fragrance of incremental change.
Creating and living into the emergent world, by definition, means that there are significant aspects of this world that are not yet formed, not yet known, or are aspects of ways that have been long forgotten and require work to be re-membered. Into such an endeavor, such an enterprise, such a dream, such a Big Project, there will of course be peeps that aren’t keen, who are resistant, who don’t believe…and that’s just on the side of the spectrum within “our” ideology.
At the center of all transformative work is the necessity to move with the ready and the willing — especially with the readiness and willingness within the personal “you” (versus the abstract “you”). In other words, what are you willing to commit to, build, grow?
If you have three (beyond the “me, myself, and I” trio), you have critical mass and may build from there. That is how the nucleus of transformative physics works.
As the critical mass of creation hits the realities of implementation, then the net is cast to bring in more peeps.
Surely, the open-minded, the explorers, the fruitfully-in-the-neighborhood inquirers, the generatively hopefuls are better prospects than the not-keeners, change resisters, and we’re good-in-this-worlders. This may very well mean moving beyond the usual circles of relationship. But that, too, is in the reality of implementing into the emergent worldview.
Building critical mass can be neutrally applied to destructive purposes as well as delightful creation. Here we beseech… interrupt the angry mob before it stirs, and lean into the hit-and-run-hula-flash-mob kind of thing.
This is how it works. So why may we feel regretful, or sad? Some of this is our acculturation and habit of moving with everyone, or not at all. And some of this is our genuine and strongly-held value of bringing everyone along and leaving no one behind. Critical mass organically grows, and there is a lot of work to do in the world. Everyone doesn’t have to be doing the same thing at the same time. :-)
